Wor(L)ds

Bob and Roberta Smith, Peter Fend
Curated by Massimiliano Scuderi and Marco Nicodemo

Words create worlds and, at the same time, question them, this is the theme of the exhibition Wor(L)ds, featuring works by artists Bob and Roberta Smith and Peter Fend, curated by Massimiliano Scuderi and Marco Nicodemo.

The occasion arises from the collaboration between the Zimei Foundation and the La Saleriana association, which will articulate, starting with this appointment, a program of exhibitions within the prestigious venue of Palazzo Cavallarini Lazzaroni, Via dei Barbieri n. 7, in Rome.

The artists involved, Bob and Roberta Smith (1963 Reading, UK), a pseudonym for Patrick Brill, and Peter Fend (Columbus, Ohio,1950)-both operating in a practice close to activism-have constructed critical spaces in which art is considered and employed as a political yet aesthetic tool.

The former, inspired by an encounter with another great artist, James Lee Byars, who at the ’93 Venice Biennale gave him one of his gold stickers bearing the words “Your presence is your best performance,” works not so much in defining a public art as in bringing art into the public. This modus operandi induces individuals to self-determine themselves through art practice-to emphasize his pedagogical intent that he exercises through engagement in schools.

The second, Peter Fend, bases his research on the potential of the world’s watersheds and refounding communities using tools that can be deduced from art history. He remixes history and geography and, bordering on the utopian, rethinks the boundaries of states by focusing on the opportunities arising from the use of watersheds. It is a practice in architecture that meets four requirements listed by Leon Battista Alberti for a city to have air, water, space in which to move and defense.

The Stacks-texts with a metric that punctuates geometries within the page-represent memoranda preparatory to organizing the viewer’s thinking in understanding the future potential for more creative and, perhaps because of that, more ethical communities.

The exhibition is produced with the support of the Spazio Sette bookstore and with Roscioli.

Curated by  Massimiliano Scuderi e Marco Nicodemo.